Scaling Sorare's NFT Platform with CEO & Co-Founder, Nicolas Julia

Nicolas Julia is the Co-Founder and CEO at Sorare, building the next generation of Sports games… where fans can play with skin in the game. On this episode, Nicolas shares Sorare's exciting new launch, how Sorare grew to reach millions of users, what's next for Sorare, and so much more. ------ Push | Try the Communication Protocol of Web3 https://bankless.cc/Push ------ SUBSCRIBE TO NEWSLETTER: https://newsletter.banklesshq.com/ ️ SUBSCRIBE TO PODCAST: http://podcast.banklesshq.com/ ------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: ️ ARBITRUM | SCALING ETHEREUM https://bankless.cc/Arbitrum DESO | DECENTRALIZED SOCIAL BLOCKCHAIN https://bankless.cc/Deso BRAVE | THE BROWSER NATIVE WALLET https://bankless.cc/Brave TRUEFI | CRYPTO FINANCIAL HUB https://bankless.cc/TrueFi SEQUENCE | ALL-IN-ONE PLATFORM https://bankless.cc/Sequence ️FUEL | THE MODULAR EXECUTION LAYER https://bankless.cc/Fuelpod ------ Timestamps: 0:00 Intro 7:51 2018 to Sorare Today 15:41 Sore's Obvious Success 20:15 Combining Communities 24:41 Speculation & Profit 26:46 Sorare UX 31:51 Licensing Rights 39:57 What's Next for Sorare? 43:16 Sports Fan TAM 49:14 Can Sorare Handle the Scale? 50:44 Advice for Other Builders 53:44 Other NFT Projects 57:05 Closing & Disclosures ------ Resources: Nicolas Julia https://twitter.com/ni2las Sorare https://sorare.com/ ----- Not financial or tax advice. This channel is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. This video is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research. Disclosure. From time-to-time I may add links in this newsletter to products I use. I may receive commission if you make a purchase through one of these links. Additionally, the Bankless writers hold crypto assets. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:06Ryan Sean Adams?

  Hey, Bankless Nation. Happy State of the Nation. This is an episode where David do a deep dive on a topic that's been making headlines recently. David, I feel like we are on a redemption arc today because we are notoriously not into sports. At least, we haven't provided good sports coverage on Bankless in the past. But today, we are talking all about sports and the blockchain, sports and crypto.

• 0:33David Hoffman?

  I can get behind that.

• 0:34Ryan Sean Adams?

  So, at least I can get behind 50% of this. But we know there are a ton of sports fans in the Bankless community. How do we know? Because you've pointed out our mistakes. And you've told us, this is an episode on the future of on-chain sports with, I think, an organization and a project that is doing more in crypto sports than anyone else. These are the folks behind SoRare. They started with football in the EU, and there'd be soccer for us Americans, and have since expanded, and this is recent news, to the NBA. This is a recent announcement from them, also to Major League Baseball. So, David, what are we going to be talking about today?

• 1:11David Hoffman?

  I think this is going to be part of the overarching story, also timely with the whole Reddit phenomenon, where Reddit put NFTs into 3 million people's hands. How did they do that? And so, it's a story, I think, of Ethereum, of blockchains, Layer 2s, NFTs, finding their ways into communities that are like outside of crypto Twitter, outside of just like these deep NFT, deep-end communities, and are more mainstream, right? Sports are mainstream. And SoRare unquestionably has discovered product-market fit at the intersection of sports and crypto, which seems like, at a cursory glance, a weird intersection, right? Sports, crypto, what does this have to do with each other? And so, we're going to answer this question as to why SoRare

• 1:54David Hoffman?

  has found product-market fit here in the intersection of the nerds and the jocks, if you will. And like, what it really takes, what's the secret sauce behind these things? And what lessons can we pull away from the product-market fit that SoRare has seen?

• 2:07Ryan Sean Adams?

  We usually do disclosures at this point in the episode. Disclosure, there are no disclosures. David nor myself own any equity or tokens in SoRare.

• 2:17David Hoffman?

  Or SoRare cards. I don't even own a SoRare fantasy card.

• 2:20Ryan Sean Adams?

  There's a sad story behind that in that I was actually offered the opportunity to be an angel investor in SoRare. And guess what? I turned it down because I didn't know enough about sports.

• 2:35Ryan Sean Adams?

  So my sports, you know, lack of knowledge, ignorance has hurt me a lot over the years, apparently as well. David, before we get into this episode, let's give a shout out to our friends and sponsors over at Push. This is a super neat protocol. It gives you on-chain notifications. David, I'm showing the interface. What sort of things can you use Push for?

• 2:57David Hoffman?

  Just to get notified of stuff going on on Ethereum, on the world of the metaverse, whatever that may be. Is your ENS name expiring soon? Oh, well, you gotta go, gotta go fix that. Like, oh, is your vault about to be liquidated? Ooh, you should go, go fix that. But Ryan, like, I know, I know, because you're, you know, a normal person. Well, actually, you're an AI. But the first thing you do, I bet, when you wake up in the morning is you check your phone. And if you want events that are going on in crypto to show up on your phone, you need Push. Whether you are a consumer of those notifications or you are actually an application pushing these notifications out to your users, either way, you need Push. There is a link in the show notes to go get started, getting notified about events in the metaverse.

• 3:40Ryan Sean Adams?

  That's really cool. I mean, Earnify gives you the ability to get notified for airdrop opportunities you might be eligible for. That's just one of them.

• 3:46David Hoffman?

  Ryan is leaking some alpha here.

• 3:48Ryan Sean Adams?

  You could just, you could just sign up for all of these. Anyway, opt into these. There's a link in the show notes. All right, David, what should people look out for in this episode? I know this is partially a story about product market fit and crypto, but I also feel like there's a layer two story behind SoRare. What, what are some of the things people should be on the lookout for?

• 4:06David Hoffman?

  Yeah, so I want to ask Nicholas about just the usability in UX and how, like, in the world, if you go onto Reddit right now and you go like, I like NFTs, you get 10,000 downvotes. So I want to, I want to learn about like how. The word NFT in crypto has been accepted by this community that is seemingly outside of the crypto community. How far outside the crypto community is it? And what is the secret sauce behind why product market fit has been seen at SOVERAR? And what lessons can we learn to apply that to other fields? So like, there's one part, a layer two conversation, there's one part, an NFT conversation, there's one part, a gamification part, because that is what SOVERAR is.

• 4:48David Hoffman?

  It is fantasy, it's a fantasy game built on top of actual real sports. And so, how did all of these things come together? And how can we leverage the secret sauce to apply to other projects out in the crypto space? So that's the thing to pay attention to.

• 5:01Ryan Sean Adams?

  Definitely, a lot of lessons for us here, guys. We'll be right back with Nicolas Julia, who is the co-founder and CEO of SOVERAR. But before we do, we want to thank the sponsors that made this episode possible.

• 5:12David Hoffman?

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• 5:56David Hoffman?

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• 6:40David Hoffman?

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• 7:25David Hoffman?

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• 7:52Ryan Sean Adams?

  All right, guys, we are back with Nicolas Julia. He's the co-founder and CEO of SoRare. They're building the next generation of sports games where fans can play with skin in the game. This is a mix of fantasy sports and also NFT collectibles, sort of tokenized cards that you can actually own. Nicholas, welcome to Banklist. How you doing, man?

• 8:14Speaker 02

  Thank you. Thank you, Ryan, for having me. Very excited to have this chat with you today.

• 8:17Ryan Sean Adams?

  Me too. Do you know, you tweeted this out right before, and this was a memra, I'd forgotten this email right before we started. This is an email that you sent me, I think, like, is it four years ago now?

• 8:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, four years ago, I was in eighteen.

• 8:30Ryan Sean Adams?

  And this is when you first started getting into NFTs. This was an email you sent me. You said, hey, Ryan, I just read your tweet storm about NFTs. This was back in 2018, and I guess I was tweeting about NFTs. We were just kind of conceptualizing them, I feel like, as an industry. And you said you're excited about it, the debate to determine which underlying protocol is going to win the NFT war.

• 8:52David Hoffman?

  Oh, I remember this era of crypto where we thought a single protocol would win the NFT war.

• 8:57Ryan Sean Adams?

  Yeah. And then you said you're fully dedicated to crypto. You had some ideas on it. And my, how far you and SoRare have come since then. Can you just take us through the last four years of what you've built and what SoRare has accomplished? Maybe some of the stats and take us from this conversation all the way to SoRare today.

• 9:19Speaker 02

  No, of course. I mean, when I was, you know, like, starting to look at NFTs, so early eighteen, end of seventeen, early eighteen. I was, sorry, I was fascinated by the fact that they're going to bring digital property to the web. And, you know, I was, I was, I keep on digging, digging. And I was looking at this cool feature, which is digital scarcity and what it could bring to collectors. And, you know, human beings have been collecting in the, in the physical space for centuries. And I was convinced that this behavior is going to apply to the, to the web. I'm a massive sports fan, so I was dreaming to bring all these athletes and teams and leagues on top of it.

• 10:03Speaker 02

  And, you know, like, develop officially licensed NFT guns, representing the players, the teams that we love. And look, I was convinced that just this would be 10 times bigger than physical collecting, because it's, you know, you have proof of scarcity, true ownership, it's easier to trade, it's easier to show to your community. There's many, many reasons why I was thinking about that. But I was also thinking that for, for that to be huge, really mainstream and reach hundreds of millions of fans across the globe, we would need to bring a usage. Value that is beyond collecting, right? So that's where the fantasy game or the game uh uh Pilon is coming from.

• 10:45Speaker 02

  Having a way uh cool way for fans every day, every week uh to engage with the card. So we we got started at this intersection of, you know, this emerging technology, NFTs. Uh official like official partnerships with the top IP in the world of sports uh and then gaming. Uh so got got started with uh with Socon, as you said, uh and uh and uh you know, now we have like more than two million, two million users and plus two.

• 11:11Ryan Sean Adams?

  Two million users?

• 11:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, half a million active uh on a on a monthly basis. So that's uh that has been a strong start, I would say.

• 11:20Ryan Sean Adams?

  Yeah.

• 11:21Speaker 02

  We.

• 11:21Ryan Sean Adams?

  And can I can I ask, by the way, because um uh are they still active? Like, have they felt this like bear market at all?

• 11:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:28Ryan Sean Adams?

  User base? How does that? How does that look these days versus like a year ago when the crypto market was booming?

• 11:35Speaker 02

  No, I think I think that if you look even at Crypto Slam or any NFT tracker, right? You you would find that uh. Um you know, at uh before the big market, we were like in terms of sales volume, like we were somewhere between the fifteenth and twentieth position with all the profile pick. NFTs being, you know, topping this this this list. I think if you look uh at the last week, uh if we are not at the top. Uh so that's today. I think that we are looking if you go at the top, you can you can a bit be above above that. Uh yeah, higher. If you look at seven days, we are pre, we are the top. Uh and uh and I think that speaks to the fact that uh we we kept on uh we kept on growing during this pure market. Uh if you look at all the metrics, like new users, sales and and so on.

• 12:21Speaker 02

  So uh that's, I think that's encouraging. Uh and uh that that speaks to the fact that uh when you when you do something. Uh beyond collecting, beyond trading, uh I I think you you you are more resilient. Uh because people have fun, people express their passion, their identity as sports fans and and and and they, you know, they they keep on using and playing with the cons. Uh this bit the fact that the markets are going on.

• 12:47Ryan Sean Adams?

  So I just want for folks that are listening to this, maybe can't see, we are on a website called Crypto Slam that is tracking NFT collections by various metrics in terms of sales, in terms of transactions. And this is so rare on a seven week or seven day period of time, leading the pack in terms of sales.

• 13:08David Hoffman?

  Sales volume, yeah.

• 13:09Ryan Sean Adams?

  Sales volume, nine million in sales volume.

• 13:12David Hoffman?

  But also completely dominated on unique number of transactions, coming in at 154,000 transactions over the last seven days in comparison to Bored Apes coming in at 78.

• 13:24Ryan Sean Adams?

  Yeah.

• 13:24David Hoffman?

  Gosun Chain also kind of in a similar category versus a collectible, I would say a similar category versus SoRare, 177,000 transactions and then down to CryptoPunks where you see 44. So you can really see the division of the categories here.

• 13:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think like one important point here is that this is only tracking our secondary transactions. And so there's a significant volume of transactions and sales that is coming from the primary market, the calls that we sell for the first time as well. And that's also only tracking the paying users that are engaging with NFCs. But we have a significant number of users that are engaging with the free to play game and engaging with the fantasy this way.

• 14:10Ryan Sean Adams?

  What I think is really neat here is because you, SoRare has not suffered a decline in the way that Bored Apes has or even CryptoPunks have, because this is sort of a real world fanbase that is not as tied to like crypto speculative markets. And so we talk so often about in crypto about real world use cases, you know, that like normies would actually use. Well, this is one of them, guys, like people who are into sports, which is basically everyone that you know, like, you know, is into some sport, right? All of the normal people that you know.

• 14:50David Hoffman?

  Except for your favorite podcast co-hosts.

• 14:52Ryan Sean Adams?

  Well, but you know what? It's the only reason David and I, like, David used to be, who'd you say? Like you're you're a big sports fan like

• 14:59David Hoffman?

  Oh yeah, Seattle Mariners, nineteen ninety nine to two thousand and one, two thousand and two. Yeah, big time.

• 15:04Ryan Sean Adams?

  So I grew up in Canada, the Toronto area, huge Toronto Maple Leafs fan. I used to follow it like, like my entire childhood up until like, you know, I was out of college and such. And I just haven't had time lately because like crypto is kind of dominating my life. So anyway, tons of sports fans, real world use case, and it does well even when crypto prices are down. This is quite a testament. And look at those transactions, right? We'll have other questions about how are you actually scaling this? But I just want folks to see kind of the volume and the level that's going on in NFT world. And all of this is happening kind of behind the scenes quietly.

• 15:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:42David Hoffman?

  And Nicholas, I want to parse out two or three things that I think that you definitely noticed very, very early, things like that you picked out earlier than than most other people. And that was NFTs. In two twenty eighteen, NFTs were a theory, not practice. And then, but also scale. And I'm pretty sure SoRare started off understanding that, yo, the Ethereum layer one is not going to do it for us. And then also extra crypto communities. And so you kind of slammed these three particles together. NFTs, a community that's outside of crypto, call it the sports world, the sports community, and NFTs. And maybe there are some other things as well, but I really think

• 16:25David Hoffman?

  that's what some of the secret sauce is behind SoRare's success, is that it identified these three things and the potential here way ahead of schedule back in twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen. What about those three things were obvious to you? Like, what did it? Did it feel obvious at the time? Or just can you go through the thought process as to kind of how you put all these things together?

• 16:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think I think from the very first day was like, because I remember in seventeen eighteen, like the very small NFT community was that there was a debate was on, we should, you know, like, simplify the user experience or keep this clunky experience of, you know, like setting up a wallet and like this, I don't know, between fifteen and twenty. Steps before you can buy a crypto bank, right? And then so part of the community was thinking this is education, like when the users need to go through it. It's a feature, not a burger of that. And I was like, no, I think, I think, you know, if you want to really like uh reach like millions, dozens of millions of users, we need, we need, we need to abstract the complexity and deliver on the benefits

• 17:29Speaker 02

  uh of N F T collectibles to, to, to the mainstream and so and, and so the benefits for us in our, in our case are like the digital scarcity, so the collectability, uh the true ownership, the fact that you can, you know, sell your card freely, the fact that you can move it to other games and outside of the platform and so on. And so people need to, fans need to feel it, you know, uh and, and, and, and not go, I know, through different steps or to uh Q and A to understand this, like they, they need to feel it through design, through the user experience, through copyrighting, whatever, but but really feel it, right? So, so that, that has been like very important in the way we are protected and built um the, the, the product.

• 18:10Speaker 02

  And, and then like our conviction was uh baked in the fact that we are answering like uh uh human needs that are like very, very deep, right? Like uh uh expressing who you are, your identity for a sponsor, like it's, it's collecting plays a big role. Uh and N F Ts are enabling digital collection, right? So we, we were like in, into this track. Uh we were also into the track of like uh um, you know, like a kind of uniting sponsors or, or, or enabling fans to connect. Uh and obviously connecting is also so something that is very important for us as

• 18:48Speaker 02

  as human beings and, and so enabling this, this fans to play against each other uh with the bragging rights that come with it, to meet uh more people also was something that, that was, that was very, very important to us. So, um, so, so, yeah, we are, we, we were like very convinced about like the, the, the huge potential uh uh at this intersection of collecting and uh and playing with your friends, basically. Uh and, and for us, N F Ts just happen to be the perfect technology uh to uh to unlock this potential. Uh and uh, you know, it, the, the market fit was such, uh, you know, such abuse that we, we haven't

• 19:29Speaker 02

  you know, like made any bad marketing so far, like we, we haven't spent money on marketing, so everything that happened so far um. Has been organic, like with the referral program and so on.

• 19:41Speaker 02

  Around the World Cup, so in a couple of weeks, we're gonna do our first marketing campaign, actually. So, so we're gonna start, you know, putting the brand out in the US notably. Well, I think there's this tremendous potential for us. And so, and so now I believe that the product is getting close on, you know, to the, to the, to the state I want it to be in to start like, you know, spreading the world and, and yeah, there's still like some steps to remove the frictions that I'd like us to do, but we are getting closer to, to, you know, to, to show this product to big audiences.

• 20:16David Hoffman?

  So for the Bankless listeners that aren't actually familiar, what SoRare actually is, like what, what you do with these NFTs, it's kind of like, it's a fantasy game where you have these NFTs that represent real players, football players, that's soccer for the American people, baseball players, basketball players, kind of like, kind of like a baseball card, kind of like a basketball card. Yeah, and then there's points that if the, the player in real life, in a real game, does something in their game, that will be, that would score points for people that have these cards, that have selected these cards to be in that fantasy game for that week or something.

• 20:54David Hoffman?

  And so, the idea is you, you collect the cards, they have a real link with a real player, that player scores points in the real life, the points are scored in the fantasy game, and you can only get those points if you have the card that associates with the player. Nicholas, how much overlap is there between crypto people like me and Ryan, who don't know who Rafael Federer Nadal is or whatever, the tennis players, and the people that are on SoRare? Like, to what degree are these crypto people? Or are these just mainly like sports players? How much overlap is there between these two communities?

• 21:29Speaker 02

  So yeah, we, you know, like, as for any, like, consumer product that aims to, to reach, like, ve- very, very big audiences, like, you, you start with an early community of early adoptants. So for us, it was crypto enthusiasts with an interest of sports and even NFT enthusiasts in the early days with an interest in sports. So let me tell you, it was very, like, a couple of hundreds and a couple of thousand people, like, very limited, uh, segments. Uh, and then, like, we grew to people, uh, you know, with, with an interest in sports and, uh, spending money, uh, in, in games, uh, where they, they, they could have, like, skin in the game, right? Uh, I know we are extending to a new user segment, so people, um, uh, playing fantasy sports,

• 22:12Speaker 02

  uh, free to play fantasy sports notably, and also collecting in the physical world. So we are moving from segment to segment and make, and, you know, evolving the product to cut out to this, to this, to this new segments. Uh, and, uh, and right now, most of the users that are jumping in, they don't even know, you know, that, that there's a blockchain behind and, you know, there's, it's an NFT, all of that. Uh, they, you know, they don't, they don't know about that, right? So they, but they, they understand the benefits, they get it, and, and, and at some point in their journey, they understand, uh, what it is, and most of the time, it changed their mind, by the way, uh, ab- about, about NFTs, because the perception of NFTs in sports, right now in Europe in particular, is, is not that good, right? Like, because, you know, like, during the bull market, we've seen so many, like, um, you know, like,

• 22:56Speaker 02

  cash grabs and so, and so on, that, you know, it, it kind of, uh, undermined the perception of the, of the fans. Um, and hopefully, we, we are trying to do things the, the right way now, um, and, and, and build, uh, the best product for, for the fans. And I think so, yeah, the, the way the product works, as you, you, you put it very, very well, like, it's, it's a mix between, uh, co- collecting and playing fantasy, so you would, you know, collect NFT cons representing the players that you love. Uh, and, you know, some player, some people just engage with that part, right, like, just collecting and others, uh, you know, like, uh, uh, then they are composing a team, uh, with, uh, with these players and engaging with the fantasy game, where they can progress and win rewards.

• 23:38Speaker 02

  And and so, yeah, th- th- th- these are really the two pillars. Uh, and so, yeah, put it another way, I would, I would, um, I would, I would present it as, you know, uh, collect, like, collecting, uh, on steroids, like, the, the owning this officially licensed NFTs, uh, open, uh, a new world of things that you can do, so engaging with the fantasy game and winning rewards, uh, but also accessing physical experiences. So we were starting to iterate on, okay, you own this NFT, you can go to this game, you can meet this player, you can access this training ground. Uh, so a- all these things that we are doing in collaboration with our partners, uh, all the top, uh,

• 24:19Speaker 02

  you know, sponsor in the world, uh, and, uh, and athletes, like, we have, uh, Serena Williams as a board advisor, uh, Kylian Mbappe as a, you know, investor and ambassador, and, and, and Rudy Gobert, uh, in, in the basketball world, and many others that we're gonna announce in the coming months. So, so this, this bridge between the digital and the physical is also something that we are very excited about.

• 24:43David Hoffman?

  And, and so what role does money play here? Because we're looking at Ryan's screen as he's navigating, and you can buy these cards. One card you can buy for $4.44, another card you could buy for $213. Like, when, when people hear NFTs, they kind of think, you know, speculative asset collectibles that go up and down in price. Wh- what role does speculation play in owning some of these cards? And also, like, can you, as a player of so rare NBA, so rare MLB, so rare, rare football, can you, like, make money playing this game? Is that like a core part of it, or is the money more of an afterthought?

• 25:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think, uh, like, uh, another way to think about the product is like, in the physical world, like, when you think about, uh, like, an NBA team, for instance, like, you have different roles that you can play. Uh, you, you could be, uh, a team owner, right? Uh, making decisions on what players to buy. You can be a sports director, trying to find the next town and scout for the next town. You can be a coach, like thinking about what players to put on the court for the next game. And you can be a player, obviously. And I think what's amazing with this product, with Sora and B A, because we're talking about this, is that you can play all those roles, like there's four roles, like team, like owner making decisions on what to buy.

• 26:00Speaker 02

  And being a sports director, scout, being a coach, being a player, you play all the roles. And so, and so that's amazing. To get back to your question, I think that there's different motivations for different people on the product. Like people engaging only with the collecting part, people engaging only with the trading part, people engaging only with the fantasy part. So there, there, there's all different motivations. And, and yes, some people are making money by reselling a card like they would do in the physical world with top scouts or panini cards or any collective, right? But, but, but I did score, it's, it's a way, new way to engage with, with the passion, right? Like, and to express who you are, to play with your friends, to meet your friends.

• 26:43Speaker 02

  And, and that's, I think, what's, what's really exciting.

• 26:47Ryan Sean Adams?

  Nicholas, I'm just kind of scrolling through this, the seizure interface here. And I think you said it early is, did I catch you right? And a lot of users don't even know that they're using NFTs basically. Or that's not what's material, you know, to them, the NFT itself. Like the, what's impressing me most as I'm scanning through this interface is like, it doesn't feel like a blockchain. It feels very much like a web two app. And yet there are so many things that like I'd recognize, like, oh, the ability to kind of transfer fiat from Moonpay or Ramp. Um, the ability to add ETH, my wallet, and I can bid on each of these players. And I can bid directly from my credit card or in ETH, right? Like, all of this feels so familiar to a crypto native.

• 27:31Ryan Sean Adams?

  But also, I like the user experience here is like, there's a wallet behind the scenes here, but it's just, it's not clunky there. You don't even, it doesn't feel like all of the, the crypto interfaces that, that I think crypto natives have experienced in the past. Can you talk a little bit about this? Like, so this had to be hard, making this, making this happen and smoothing out all of these, these rough edges. How did you get to this point?

• 28:00Speaker 02

  Look, you know, it has been like, first of all, as I said, it has been like one of the key principles that I gave as a product direction to the team, like abstracting all this complexity so that we can deliver all the benefits to the fans. I think that's the first thing to say. I think we went through phases. I don't know if you remember Loom Network.

• 28:24Ryan Sean Adams?

  I do, I remember. So I think I remember you picking me, what, 2018, 2019? You're like, hey, we're not sure how to scale this thing. I'm looking at Loom. And at the time, this was like Plasma Layer 2 was the promise. Yeah, tell me where that ended up.

• 28:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, so no, long story short, like, it has been painful, right? Because we moved from Layer 1 to Layer 2 with Loom, to Layer 1 again, because Loom disappeared at some point. And then, again, moving up to Layer 2 with Starcoin. And we've been always with this goal to abstract the complexity and have something that is secure, that is scalable, obviously. And so, yeah, we went through different phases. Now, we are happy with with the outcome that we still have, you know, like some steps to go to really like

• 29:19Speaker 02

  reach the audiences we want to reach. Mobile is an issue. So we have good conversations, you know, with Google, with Apple, because right now, you know the problem better than I do, but it's not possible to sell. There's digital collectibles on the app store, and I've seen like recent news, like on, you know, like terms on the app store. You know, it's not really like NFT friendly right now. So there's still some, you know, some conversations to be had and some and some progress that we should all do for the space, I guess.

• 29:56Ryan Sean Adams?

  Yeah, seeing where this app has come just excites me so much because I think, you know, so many critics, particularly of crypto, but then in NFTs, they're always asking, so where are the use cases? When is this going to go mainstream, right? And here's a perfect example of SoRare, which is scaled a real world use case. I mean, this is not using like Ponzi economics in order to scale.

• 30:20David Hoffman?

  Can you imagine?

• 30:21Ryan Sean Adams?

  It's just real demand from sports enthusiasts for recognizable real world assets. And they built it while, you know, doing so within the kind of the constraints of crypto, but like smoothing out all of the rough edges from a UX perspective. And I know there's still work you want to do there. So you're probably seeing some of the imperfections, but I'm seeing like how far we have come. And like this being a use case that doesn't use Ponzi economics, smoothed out all of the rough edges, and it's actually like scaling on layer two. So this is, these are real NFTs secured by Ethereum and settled at the base layer. That is pretty damn

• 31:06Ryan Sean Adams?

  impressive. And honestly, I think that probably the SoRare team doesn't, this use case doesn't get enough credit in crypto circles.

• 31:16David Hoffman?

  It's because it's sports. We're like, oh, yeah, I forgot about sports.

• 31:20Speaker 02

  I think that's part of it, part of it. And part of like, we are, you know, we're reaching a community that is, well, you know, like, very different from crypto Twitter, for instance. And but I agree, Ren, with your point. Like, we like, when you look at crypto Twitter, like this, we are naturally present there. And that's, that's, yeah, yeah.

• 31:40Ryan Sean Adams?

  It's so great to see. And actually, this is probably going to be one of my favorite kind of real world use cases. Next time a skeptic's like, what does, what do NFTs actually accomplish for people? One last question I have for you, and then we do need to break and come back. We got a lot more to cover. But how in the world did you get organizations like the NBA, the MLB, and some of the original football organizations in Europe to sign on to this project? Get that licensing setup? Because that's another feat of magic. Wow, you actually got like licensing rights from some of these major organizations. And I guess particularly the early ones, they took a bet on a startup doing this weird crypto NFT thing. How did that happen?

• 32:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, that that has been like, uh, yeah, like, like, that that has been very long, uh, very long process with lots of, uh, education and effort, uh, because, you know, you you you have seen probably like, uh, lots of partnerships between crypto companies and sponsor six, uh, and so you have this partnership category where, you know, you use, uh, sponsor teams and leagues to bring awareness to your crypto product. But what we are doing is different. Uh, we're gonna have some marketing and we're gonna start using it with the leagues and the teams. But it's called, it's licensing using the IP, meaning the players, uh, and the the name of the teams and the league to sell products.

• 33:02Speaker 02

  So you have the IP on the products and their IP is is the the the biggest asset that they have. So they are very conservative. And what we've done in football, like bringing all these teams and links together, there's probably two companies that have done it in the last sixty years. Uh, Panini in the world of physical collecting and Electronic Arts with the FIFA franchise, the video game, right? So it it that it's it's not every year or even every decade that, uh, you know, these organizations decide to partner with companies like us, uh, and and and and give their IP. Um, so, so, uh, so, so in in order to get down, we we like our strategy has been to start, uh, small and through the model.

• 33:42Speaker 02

  So we we started with the Belgian league, uh, and then adding like little by little other leagues or the clubs. And proving that, you know, it was, it was, uh, the future of sponsor gaming, uh, it was working, you know, it's why it was a legitimate use case. And it was engaging sponsor fans in a sustainable way, um, and also proving them that we are building, uh, you know, like a world-class, uh, consumer experience, right? And because because they care so much about their IP, they care about the quality of the experience. And so this is something that we spend lots of effort also. Uh, and so then we we we, you know, we we moved to this place, uh, in football with, you know, millions of users and lots of engagement and, uh,

• 34:24Speaker 02

  uh, you know, like, uh, huge, uh, sales volumes and so on. And so leading, creating this new category, this new market. Uh we we were in the best position to convince then US leagues uh to jump in with us like being the category creator. So they believe that we are the best place, uh the the the best position, sorry, uh to you know, to to develop this category for them. Uh and um not only to be a new mainstream, uh and they are interested in this, of course, but also help them to reach new audiences. So right now, like the the MLB, they are very excited about the potential that we have

• 35:02Speaker 02

  to to grow the sport with them uh in Europe, in Asia, and these geographies where they want to develop outside of the US, basically, right? So uh so it's very exciting because we're gonna build a pie for everyone. We're gonna help the football, the soccer teams and leagues to grow in the US with the IP that we've acquired here. And we and the other way around, we're gonna help you to grow uh in in other parts of the world. Uh with this vision that, you know, this is going to be uh the marketplace where you're gonna be able to trade your LeBron James against your Kylian Mbappe or your Messi, right? Uh I think this is something that's very unique that we are doing. Well, you know, it's it's one product, right? And so with one wallet, with one new one account, you can play different games, different sports and move

• 35:48Speaker 02

  across them. And I I think that's that's pretty amazing.

• 35:51Ryan Sean Adams?

  So you want to collect all the sports then? NBA, MLB, soccer, football, that's kind of the start, but there are a few other uh sports to collect.

• 36:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, there are there are more sports to collect. Uh we're interested in all the top sports in the world with global audiences. Um and so, yes, we have two of the three major US sports. We have uh football uh with billions of fans across the globe. Uh and that's a very nice start. And we are like laser focused on delivering for the free sports right now. Uh but obviously, like, we we we we look uh to expand at some points in the future, yeah.

• 36:25Ryan Sean Adams?

  Amazing.

• 36:26David Hoffman?

  Yeah, Nicholas, I think uh. It's unquestionably that Sovera kind of knows what's up. And so as somebody that has taken a product into product market fit and now is in a post-product market fit world, that makes you like one of the few, right? And so I want to pick your brain a little bit in the second half of the show about like just advice and perspective that we could give other peoples who are also still on this path of maybe they're working in NFTs, maybe they're working on mainstream apps. Just as somebody who's gone through the dark forest of building a product for non-crypto people and that product be successful, I just want to pick your brain a little bit about how any advice that you might have for the people still working towards that path.

• 37:10David Hoffman?

  So all of those questions and more are coming up in the second half of the show, right after we talk to some of these fantastic sponsors that make this show possible. Sequence is the all-in-one developer platform you need to build web three games and applications. For your users, Sequence is a smart wallet and it's the easiest, most intuitive onboarding your users will ever experience and comes with all the features users need to feel empowered in the web three world. Multi-train support, NFT display, and users can buy SFTs, NFTs, and crypto directly with a credit or debit card. For developers, Sequence is the plug-and-play platform for web three games and apps. Their APIs let you bring NFTs, SFTs, and tokens into your game or application. And a Sequence relayer enables gasless transactions for your users. Sequence already powers some of the best web three games like Skyweaver, NFT projects

• 37:55David Hoffman?

  like Coolcats, and marketplaces like NiftySwap. And Sequence is compatible with all the EVM chains, including Ethereum, Polygon, Binance Smart Chain, Arbitrum, Optimism, and Avalanche. So go to sequence.xyz to get started unlocking the full potential of your application today. The reality today is that five corporations control the entire world of social media. They own our names, they restrict our content, they monitor our every move. And their time is up, thanks to our sponsor, DSO. DSO is a Layer One blockchain built from the ground up to decentralize and scale social networks. With DSO, you can own your own identity, content, and social graph, and take it with you across hundreds of applications already built on the censorship-resistant DSO blockchain. DSO's storage advantages make it finally

• 38:38David Hoffman?

  It's nearly possible to build infinite state applications that can efficiently store and index large amounts of content and data fully on-chain. DESO also offers multiple crypto-native monetization primitives for developers and creators, including social NFTs, social DAOs, social tokens, and social tipping. So in order to experience the social layer of Web3, go to deso.com and claim your username. That's D E S O dot com. TrueFi is DeFi's largest credit protocol, connecting global lenders with institutional-grade lending opportunities. TrueFi has completed over $1.7 billion in originations and paid out nearly $35 million to lenders, proving that DeFi is ready to take its next big leap into the $8 trillion credit market.

• 39:22David Hoffman?

  TrueFi gives lenders like you access to sustainable, high-yield opportunities backed by real-world investments, usually reserved for high-net-worth individuals. At the same time, fund managers use TrueFi's financial infrastructure to bring their portfolios on-chain, benefiting from the global liquidity, cost savings, and transparency of DeFi. TrueFi is a decentralized financial utility. The protocol is owned and governed by the TrueFi DAO, and TrueFi is here to bring DeFi into the golden age, bridging the power and access of crypto with institutional-grade lending opportunities and portfolio tooling. Explore the diverse financial opportunities available on TrueFi or launch your own portfolio at truefi.io. And we're back with Nicholas from SoRare. Nicholas, like I was saying before, the sponsors, I want to pick your brain a little bit and just like give some advice to the Bankless Nation. But first, what's next for SoRare?

• 40:07David Hoffman?

  What's on the horizon? It's a bear market now, so what are you guys doing during the bear market? And overall, can you just kind of tease like what's next on the frontiers of SoRare?

• 40:17Speaker 02

  No, look, it's going to be interesting because during the bull market, we have been quite quiet on marketing, as I was saying earlier. And we know we're going to start, you know, around the World Cup, notably in a couple of weeks, marketing aggressively the product. And I'm very excited to see this result. So the World Cup in itself is the biggest sports event in the world, right? So there's going to be lots of attention.

• 40:45David Hoffman?

  That's bigger than the Super Bowl for all you Americans. Like, it's a lot bigger than the Super Bowl, right?

• 40:50Speaker 02

  Let's be go, I think. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

• 40:52David Hoffman?

  And so you're gonna, you're gonna start marketing, like, Solr has not gone and started marketing. You're gonna start marketing at the World Cup of football, soccer.

• 41:03Speaker 02

  That's correct.

• 41:04David Hoffman?

  Globe's most viewed sports event. That's when you're going to start.

• 41:08Speaker 02

  That's correct. So it's coming, it's coming, it's coming. So no, I'm very excited. It's gonna be our first brand campaign. So we have lots of initiative around that. So I'm very excited by that. So it's not only marketing, it's also product evolutions to get on to broader audiences. So I cannot reveal everything. It's gonna come in coming days, but social features, collectible features. You know, right now, our product is truly around fantasy. And, and we, you know, we have lots to do to improve the collectivity of this course and to improve the, the social features of the product. And so we have like a couple of amazing launches that are lined up for the, for the World Cup in the, in the coming weeks.

• 41:52Speaker 02

  So, so I think that's number one. And what's next? Obviously, number two is growing aggressively our US funds that we, we've just launched. So we, you know, we are very excited, like the early results are amazing. And there's, there's much, much more we can, we can do for them. So we're gonna keep, keep on like growing, growing these products and listening to the community and improving the product every week as we've done with, with SoCo in the, in the early days. So I think, I think that's, that's number two. And yeah, number two is keep, in number three is keep on growing the team, right? Like it's 160 people right now, split between Paris and New York.

• 42:32Speaker 02

  And so, yeah, we, we brought amazing people, like people leading design at Spotify, engineering at Snap. Like we have really like amazing leaders.

• 42:42Speaker 02

  Like with us right now, people that, that have seen scale with web two companies, right? And that are bringing this knowledge to, to us. And, you know, I, I want to stay true to our crypto DNA. But at the same time, benefit from like, you know, like people that have seen scale in, in the, in the previous wave of, of tech companies. And, and this is something I'm very excited and spend a lot of time having the best talents and onboarding them. And, and yeah, that, that's something I'm spending, yeah, I'm very excited about it.

• 43:18Ryan Sean Adams?

  Nicholas, this is so cool. And I feel like there's an element to you which I really like is that is just very understated for the amount of progress that you guys have made. Like, it's just absolutely incredible. And so we're at, you know, 1.5 million or so users of SoRare today. And I was wondering, and this is before you've actually turned on kind of the the marketing engine, before you've done World Cup, before you've done all of these things. Can you give us a sense for the the total addressable market for like, sports fans?

• 43:52David Hoffman?

  How big is sports?

• 43:54Ryan Sean Adams?

  Well, let's say like, I mean, like, the World Cup alone. I mean, how many, how many football fans do we have? And I'm talking about European football when I say football, right? And so like, what is like, do you see a world where maybe 10% of the sports communities are kind of actively have some sort of, you know, SoRare type of collectible? And what kind of numbers are we seeing? You guys are maximally successful here.

• 44:18Speaker 02

  No, I think it's an interesting question.

• 44:22Speaker 02

  So like football fans, there's billions of football fans. So then it depends on, you know, like, what's really a fan? And like, do you, are we chatting someone engaging like, you know, like, once a month, a week? Yeah, but there's billions of people in the world who declare interests for football and declare themselves as fans. I think, I think that when you think about the most popular games in the in the world of soccer, we are talking a couple dozen million people that are engaging with the product. My aim is that we reach hundreds of millions of people with this product. And I'm going to tell you why I'm very convinced that we are going to do this.

• 45:06Speaker 02

  The first reason is that It's much easier to engage with this game than a video game. You don't have to buy a PlayStation and to install a game and to learn like how to play the game. All of that is much easier, right?

• 45:20David Hoffman?

  It's a casual game.

• 45:21Speaker 02

  Yes, casual. You buy a card, you compose your team, like even, you know, you can engage, you know, within twenty five, like thirty seconds, you can get the basics, right? So, so I think that's reason number one, is easy to access, easier to understand. Number two is that we are tapping into something that like, we are tapping into like behaviors that are existing, right? Like, like this need to collect and express your identity. This needs to connect and socialize with people. This need to have fun and to connect with your passion. So we are tapping into these existing behaviors, but with this amazing thing, which is owning your game, right?

• 46:04Speaker 02

  Like owning your assets and be, be with the, you know, the freedom to do whatever you want with it. And, and, and, and you know, when people get it, like when people understand that they truly own part of their game, it's, it's, you know, it's, they, it's crazy. They understand that, yes, you know, I can, I can restore this item. Yes, I can move this item into a side game. Yes, I can reuse this item for the next postseason, as opposed to being forced to buy again, something that I don't own, right? So, so it's really like a shift from a world where people were buying stuff. And you know, in video games, there are close to one hundred billion dollars spent every single year,

• 46:45Speaker 02

  uh, you know, from, from fans buying stuff that they are not owning and that they are forced to buy again next year, right? So, and I mean, and, and, and so when you move from here to a world where you give control back to your fans, to your community, where they truly own it, they can keep it and so on. Uh, when, when this is going to, to reach, you know, broader audiences, this is going to be crazy.

• 47:11David Hoffman?

  So yeah, so speaking of broad audiences, Ryan, I've got the 2018 FIFA World Cup numbers in front of me. And the reason why, Ryan, you might not know this, Ryan, but I do know this, is that the FIFA World Cup only happens every four years. So the last one. I did know that, David. I did know that.

• 47:27David Hoffman?

  We know, we got some sports stuff here. So the last FIFA World Cup 2018, 3.5 billion people watched at least one minute.

• 47:38Ryan Sean Adams?

  Are you kidding me?

• 47:39David Hoffman?

  One minute. That is, half of the globe watched at least one minute of the 2018 FIFA World Cup. And it's estimated that the, the full game was watched by 1.1 billion people, viewers worldwide.

• 47:52Ryan Sean Adams?

  That is, that blows me away.

• 47:55David Hoffman?

  Yeah.

• 47:56Ryan Sean Adams?

  That's like every, everyone.

• 47:57David Hoffman?

  Every other person saw the World Cup on a screen for at least a glint during 2018.

• 48:05Speaker 02

  And so, yeah, I'm, I'm looking at this upcoming World Cup. And so, Gianni Infantino, who's leading FIFA, is projecting 5 billion. So he's leading FIFA.

• 48:17David Hoffman?

  5 billion people? When have you ever heard of a metric like that?

• 48:21Ryan Sean Adams?

  Yeah, that's, um, I mean, how many multiples of the total number of crypto users is that? Well, so here's my question. So you're saying, when you have numbers like 3.5 billion and 5 billion, and, and you're saying you think that's so rare could get to hundreds of million of users. Guys, what that means, Bankless listeners, is we're talking about an onboarding mechanism to crypto wallets for things priced in fiat, but also priced in ETH to hundreds of millions of people.

• 48:51David Hoffman?

  All of those cards that were on sale were denominated in ETH that we saw on your screen.

• 48:56Ryan Sean Adams?

  This is a crypto onboarding mechanism, and it blows my mind. If just to all of the MetaMask users right now, 30 million or so, that's what they have in terms of like, I think, like monthly actives, 30 million, right? And we're talking about one single app being able to potentially onboard hundreds of millions. Okay, so my next question here, Nicholas, is can we handle that kind of scale right now?

• 49:20David Hoffman?

  Yeah, you're gonna break Ethereum.

• 49:23Ryan Sean Adams?

  Are we gonna go so kiddy it? Or do you have a way to like, make this thing scale?

• 49:28Speaker 02

  Look, look, my co-founder and CTO would be better placed to answer this one. Uh, I think from the latest I've heard that, you know, he's very confident. Obviously, the numbers we're discussing right now, um, you know, it's gonna be like, uh, it's gonna be phases, right? Like, uh, we are very confident for the next, uh, the next phase. Of course, you know, moving from millions to dozens of millions, we are very confident about this. Um, but, uh, yeah, ju- just to touch on, uh, you know, like, uh, what you were saying before, like, this, uh, unwound, uh, for mainstream people, mainstream fans into, uh, into the web free world. I think this is something that is important to me as a founder, right?

• 50:08Speaker 02

  And so when I was, uh, when I was starting this company, um, uh, uh, I was thinking about NFTs as a, as a way to educate people at some point and to, you know, to put digital assets in their hands. And at some point they could also like look at other cryptocurrencies and so on. Uh, obviously they are, they are, they share lots of properties, uh, with cryptocurrencies, true ownership, portability, all of that. Uh, and, and, and I think this is, this is something I'm very excited about. Uh, and, uh, I, I, I think it's, uh, uh, yeah, it's, uh, it, it, it could be like huge, uh, for, for the space, uh, in, in general.

• 50:46David Hoffman?

  So Nicholas, uh, there's so many reasons, I mean, in hindsight, it makes sense. Uh, sports, billion person fanbase. Uh, there's, I really liked what you said about you're tapping into behaviors that people already know. Uh, fantasy games, collecting, sports, uh, money, like throwing it all into a single app. And again, in hindsight, it seems to make sense why SoRare has done what it's done. What, do you have any generalizable lessons for other people? NFT builders, DeFi app builders, like what lessons have you learned that are perhaps less SoRare specific and more timeless and universal that we can all, anything just really stand out to you? Like what, what life advice do you have to give us as crypto people?

• 51:26Speaker 02

  No, yeah, I think, um, I think what, what we've done in terms of, um, uh, in a, in terms of like testing, iterating is that like for, we, we, a couple of values or principles. Um, listen, listen to, to your core community, uh, and, uh, on a weekly basis, uh, prioritize and move fast, uh, to improve the product, uh, uh, and, and, and ship what, what, uh, what they want. I think, I think the velocity is really key, uh, uh, like to, to, to make your product evolve. And more importantly, to learn what's working, what's not working, right? Uh, and it's better to have something that is shaped, that something that may be better in a couple of weeks, right?

• 52:11Speaker 02

  So I think that, that, that was, that, that, that, that's, that's like something that, that has been very, very important for us. Um, and, um, uh, I, I think, uh, yeah, probably like, uh, uh, like another one has been to focus on the right, uh, metric and to be very deliberate about what you are optimizing for. Uh, for a very, very long time, we, we, we've never, and still the case, actually, we, we, we are not optimizing for revenue, for instance, right? We are, uh, I mean, we are lucky to have been profitable since the very early days. We raised six, six hundred and eighty million dollars R B. Uh, uh, but since the very early days, we were focusing on how do we retain the users? How do we engage the users?

• 52:57Speaker 02

  Uh, and, and, and this kind of, this kind of metrics were we driving, uh, our efforts, uh, more than short term, uh, things that are maybe pleasing the investors, uh, our bond short term, but are hurting the company longer term. One example that I want to give, we could have done an ICU and have our own token or whatever, but that was not aligned, uh, with this goals of, uh, you know, like, uh, uh, delighting the users, retaining the users, all of that. And I was thinking that could, that could be, um, that could haunt us in our way to reach hundreds of millioners or, or few songs. And so, uh, because of, uh, you know, all the risks that we all know about, about this.

• 53:39Speaker 02

  And so, uh, so, so, so, yeah, that, that's another important lesson, I think.

• 53:44Ryan Sean Adams?

  Well, I have been observing Nicholas So rare from afar from the last four years.

• 53:51Ryan Sean Adams?

  Yeah, I would have loved to have been closer retrospectively, but like I can't say enough about what you guys have built. And something I think that the crypto community can take away from what you just said is you guys didn't take any shortcuts. You just built a fantastic product for your community. You had a vision and you executed. Execution, execution, execution. This is the common denominator that we see in successful crypto projects that are able to last from cycle to cycle. And congrats to you guys for doing it. Nicholas, thank you so much for joining us. I have one last question for you.

• 54:28Ryan Sean Adams?

  And this is a question related to the NFT market. I don't know if you if you kind of dabble or look in kind of the wider crypto NFT market. Or if you're just so heads down focused on what So rare is doing, kind of the fantasy sports in the sports team that you haven't looked. But what do you think of the current NFT market in crypto? You know, the board apes, the crypto punks, all the gaming NFTs, all of the stuff that's going on. Do you have any thoughts on it? Are there any projects that you really like? Do you have any wisdom to leave us with?

• 55:01Speaker 02

  No, look, I think during this bull market, we've seen lots of projects that were focused on extracting value on the short term. And that, you know, that definitely helps the overall space. I think that there's lots of build down with, you know, like a long term vision. I'm sure we, we, like lots of you have seen like what Reddit has been doing with the digital collectibles, as they call it recently. I think that's, you know, that's, that's, that's a good way to again, show the benefits of owning an NFT without, you know, like having to explain or educate or like, you know, users just fit it, right?

• 55:44Speaker 02

  And I think that there's other, there's other projects that I'm really excited about.

• 55:50Speaker 02

  And I'm not, I'm not, you know, I'm not like. I think for us, usage value and building a game has been like, you know, a key to our success. And I think that's amazing because then you read the news and you bring them every week and so on. But I also think that this amazing use case is just around collecting and art and all of that. And so I hope to see more of them as well. And I hope to keep on seeing more and more artists, you know, like developing the audiences and diversifying the way they make a living, right? So, so, so, so, yes, that's, yeah, I don't have any specifics.

• 56:30Speaker 02

  I don't spend like the time I would love to spend like looking at new, new projects. But, but I think what I see is that there's lots of buildings in gaming in particular. You know, like world-class people coming from the video game industry notably that are quietly like building the future of this space. And it takes time because building a good game takes time, but, but it's coming.

• 57:00Ryan Sean Adams?

  Absolutely, it is coming. All boats rise together. Nicholas, keep building, man. It's great to have you.

• 57:05Speaker 02

  Thank you so much.

• 57:07Ryan Sean Adams?

  Recent disclaimers, guys, as always, gotta mention, none of this has been financial advice. Hasn't been sports advice either. David and I are not in a position to give either of those two things, never do. I'd rather give financial advice. So are NFTs, so is crypto. All of DeFi is, you could definitely lose what you put in, but at least you can own it. At least you can own your own collectibles. We're headed west. This is the frontier. It's not for everyone, but we're glad you're with us on the bankless journey. Thanks a lot.